Not very good; author William Cross adopts a narrative style with accounts of the actions and words of various German and British personnel during the Zeppelin campaign. While it might involve the reader a little more than a conventional history, Cross doesn’t provide any footnotes; thus there’s no evidence that any of the purported thoughts, actions, or conversations actually took place. For example, was there really a discussion between Peter Strasser and Admiral Scheer about using the L-70 class to cross the Atlantic and bomb America? Cross narrates such a conversation; I’ve never heard of it elsewhere. Similarly, Cross reports crew actions and officer orders in zeppelins that were shot down with no survivors; it makes for gripping narrative, but how does he know?

Zeppelins of World War I reads like a hack job; the bibliography is all secondary sources, there are no illustrations, no diagrams or drawings of airships (despite the fact that the ship layout is often important to the narrative) and no maps (again, despite the fact that the many references to Zeppelin base locations, routes to England, and bombing run paths are hard to follow with only verbal descriptions). Possibly suitable for a pre-teen interested in period history, but otherwise not recommended. ( )

A good read, mostly accounts of the Naval Divison's attacks on England. Good discussion of the technical race between the airship builders and the English defenders trying to avoid or find one another. Good biographical data on the German and English airmen who fought the cold, altitude and weather in craft that were basically not strong enough to overcome them. Weak on the role of the Navy's airships in scouting for the German High Seas fleet, and even weaker for the efforts of the German Army airships. ( )